Classic Holiday Movies and Where to Find Them This Year

I tend to watch Christmas in Connecticut (the 1945 version) a few times every year around this time. Barbara Stanwyck is irresistible as a popular magazine writer who pretends to be an expert on everything domestic when she hasn't a clue how to keep a house, with Dennis Morgan as the handsome military man who dreams of a homey holiday dinner at her place. To accommodate the war hero, Babs will have to borrow a home in Connecticut, complete with husband and baby, and find a talent for flapjack flipping. "Cuddles" Sakall steps in as a friend who happens to run a restaurant, while Sydney Greenstreet is her demanding boss. This year, TCM will air Christmas in Connecticut Sunday the 11th at 1 pm Central time, at 9 pm on December 15, and at 7 pm on December 24.

Another romantic comedy I can't do without is The Shop Around the Corner, the sweet, sentimental movie about two shop clerks at a Budapest parfumerie who think they hate each other when they're really in love as pen pals. Like Christmas in Connecticut, The Shop Around the Corner is part of TCM's Christmas Classics lineup, airing December 15 at 7 pm and December 24 at 3:15 pm.

My third must-see rom com is Holiday, the 1938 Cary Grant and Katharine Hepburn charmer where she's a rich girl and he's a self-made man who thinks he's in love with her snooty sister. Unfortunately, Holiday isn't showing up anywhere that I can find it between now and December 31. Not to worry: I have it on DVD because I really, really love this movie and I don't want to spend New Year's Eve without hearing "Happy New Year, Johnny," in Katharine Hepburn's voice. Still... Somebody at some network needs to get cracking and find a slot for Holiday.

One of my other favorite Christmas movies is Elf, a Will Ferrell vehicle from 2003 that casts him as a full-sized human accidentally raised as an elf at the North Pole. When he sets out to find his real father in New York, things get funny. And sweet. And charming. With Bob Newhart and Ed Asner in supporting roles, Elf can't go wrong. The newly dubbed Freeform network is offering Elf on December 12, 13, 18 and 19. The times are a little wacky (8, 6, 8:50, 5:50) so check your local listings to be sure you know when it starts. Or you can save your Elf for the big screen, since the Normal Theater will screen this holiday classic on Sunday the 11th at 7 pm.

There are, of course, a million zillion different versions of A Christmas Carol running around out there. The one with the Muppets will be on HBO at 5:40 am on December 16, while the 1938 black-and-white version with Reginald Owen as Scrooge airs on TCM at 8 am on December 18. TCM is saving the 1951 Alastair Sim Christmas Carol that has become the standard from endless TV reruns until December 22 at 10:30 pm, while it will offer Albert Finney's musical Scrooge at 7 pm on December 18 and then again at 9:30 am the day before Christmas. If George C. Scott's A Christmas Carol is more your style, Scott will be humbugging on AMC at 7 pm Central on the 17th and then again at noon on the 18th. The Muppets Christmas Carol and the Reginald Owen Carol are also part of the Normal Theater's holiday schedule, with the Muppets on December 17 at 1 pm and Reginald on Tuesday December 20 at 7 pm.

White Christmas isn't among my own faves, but it and It's a Wonderful Life certainly seem to sit at the top of everybody's else lists. Bing & Co. will be  extolling the virtues of snow snow snow on December 14, 16, 18, 22 and 24 at the Normal Theater, or at 9:30 pm on the 17th on the AMC channel, if you'd like to watch in your jammies in your own living room. Jimmy Stewart will illustrate all the reasons to live in It's a Wonderful Life at the Normal Theater on December 15, 17, 21 and 23, or on the USA network on the 10th (7 pm), 11th (8 am) and 16th (7 pm). All of these Normal Theater choices start at 7 pm.

A note about times: I tried to be careful and put everything in Central time, but it is a good idea to double-check what's what for you if you really don't want to miss one of your own faves.

Along with Holiday, I don't see Holiday Inn, Scrooged or the 1947 original Miracle on 34th Street* anywhere on the dial throughout the rest of December, although Scrooged and the Richard Attenborough remake of 34th Street are available on Netflix and Amazon can always hook you up with the others if you really need a copy or an instant view. I'm just happy I have copies of my own so I won't be left out in the cold. Cary and Kate will do acrobatics, Fred will dance with firecrackers, Bill Murray will get smacked with a toaster and little Natalie Wood will believe in Santa Claus at my house, anyway.

* I did see Miracle on 34th Street on demand on HBO, so it is out there!

No Turning Back Now -- It's December!

So today is 12-02-12. I believe there is a theory of some sort that says the world will end this month. Mayan prediction, 12-21-12, etc... Never mind the fact that the Mayans are long gone and have no reason to have predicted the end of anything a thousand years after they were gone, and if they were going to predict, wouldn't they have chosen to predict (in order to guard against) the end of their own civilization? Okay, never mind. I don't know anything about any of this and I don't watch disaster movies, so I didn't see 2012, either. But in honor of this eschatological theory (gotta love the word eschatological), I am commemorating your What to Do in December post with the poster from the Roland "King of Crackpot Theories" Emmerich movie that pushed the End of Days '12 idea. As far as I know, no one is showing that movie on 12-21 or any other night, so you'll have to find it yourself for your 12-21-12 Eschatology viewing party.

No 2012 on the schedule, but Champaign's Art Theater is showing a 2011 version of  Wuthering Heights directed by Andrea Arnold and shot on location in Yorkshire, England. That's playing now through December 6, and will be followed by the new version of Anna Karenina with a screenplay by Tom Stoppard. Keira Knightley stars as Anna, with Jude Law as her stuffy husband and Aaron Taylor-Johnson as dashing Count Vronsky, the one she can't stay away from, even though it will ruin her life. Watch out for that train, Анна Каренина!

Also in Champaign-Urbana... The Station Theatre continues its production of Lee Blessing's Independence through December 9 -- you can read more about the play here -- while Parkland College welcomes a Bah Humbug production of The Best Christmas Pageant Ever from December 14 to 23.

Community Players' White Christmas, the stage musical version of the classic Bing Crosby film, opened last week and continues through December 16th. Deb Smith directs for Community Players, with a cast that includes Ray Rybarczyk and Jason Strunk as the song-and-dance men who fall for a pair of pretty sisters, played here by Lindsey Kaupp and Larisa McCoy. Click here for ticket info for White Christmas and other upcoming Players shows.

The other White Christmas, the Bing and Danny Kaye film one, starts December 7 at the Normal Theater, with showings on the big screen till December 9. After that, the Normal Theater offers holiday favorites National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation, A Christmas Story and It's a Wonderful Life to finish up 2012.

Illinois State University's Fall Dance Concert is scheduled for December 6 through 8, with three evening performances and one matinee.This concert promises to be a "celebration of movement, costumes, light, and music, featuring new choreographic works by faculty in the School of Theatre and Dance and invited guest artists." And don't forget to bring canned goods or other non-perishable food items to donate to the Redbird Giving Tree.

Ian Mairs' Our David, a play about sparring neighbors who find common ground over a tacky statue of Michelangelo's David, comes to New Route Theatre at the Bloomington YWCA beginning December 7. This David is directed by Bridgette Richards and stars Nathan Bothorff and Carol Scott as Clyde and Velma, who couldn't be more different and yet turn out to be strangely alike.

You also have a choice of the Holiday Spectacular at the Bloomington Center for the Performing Arts from December 7 to 9 or a variety of Nutcrackers in different cities at different times.

It's Barbara Stanwyck Month (on Wednesdays, anyway) over on Turner Classic Movies, with two of my favorites, The Lady Eve, from director/screenwriter Preston Sturges, and Ball of Fire, a Howard Hawks' gem, on December 12. Both movies came out in 1941, which may just be the best year ever for Hollywood movies. In The Lady Eve, Stanwyck is a con woman who woos a befuddled Henry Fonda, loses him, and then pretends to be another woman who looks just like the first one to pull the same scam on the same guy, while in Ball of Fire, she's a jazzy mob moll version of Snow White hiding out with seven pointy-headed encyclopedia writers (including Gary Cooper) who function as her Seven Dwarfs. It's adorable. It's screwball. It's fabulous.

Heartland Theatre is still accepting entries in its annual 10-minute play contest. This year's theme is The Parcel, the Package or the Present, and each play must include a package of some sort that fuels the play. All of which means that the holidays are a perfect time to come up with a play, what with all those parcels and packages arriving at your door. What's inside that box? Will it be a dream or will it be a dud? Will it go BOOM? You have a maximum of four characters and ten minutes to tell your Parcel/Package/Present tale.

Failure: A Love Story, a new play by Philip Dawkins, will be part of the Illinois Shakespeare Festival next summer. If you want a sneak peek or to set up a compare/contrast situation when it plays here next year, you can see the play now in its premiere production at Chicago's Victory Gardens Theater. Failure finishes up at Victory Gardens on December 30.

Dueling WHITE CHRISTMASES on Stage and Screen

If you love White Christmas -- either the Irving Berlin song as a stand-alone or the 1954 Paramount film starring Bing Crosby and Danny Kaye -- you'll get three chances to bask in the snowy glow this season.

Both the 1942 movie Holiday Inn, where the song was introduced, and Community Players' stage version of the famous film will open locally on November 29.

The movie Holiday Inn features der Bingle with Fred Astaire instead of Danny Kaye, as Bing and Fred play a pair of song (Bing) and dance (Fred) men. In this one, they're feuding over girls (first Virginia Dale and then Marjorie Reynolds) and career aspirations, as Fred dumps the act to be a duo with Lila (Dale) while Bing runs off to a country inn in Vermont to open his own holiday-inspired supper club, with Linda (Reynolds) as his vocal partner. Complications, disguises and dirty tricks ensue, and there are a lot of musical numbers matched to holidays, with "Let's Say It with Firecrackers" for the 4th of July and "Be Careful, It's My Heart" for Valentine's Day. What they do for Abraham Lincoln's birthday is best left unsaid. But Fred's firecracker dance is a pip, and both "Happy Holiday" and "White Christmas" (the song) are lovely.

The Normal Theater will screen Holiday Inn on November 29 and 30 and December 1-2, with all shows at 7 pm. 

Community Players takes on the musical version of White Christmas adapted for the stage, with music and lyrics by Irving Berlin and a new book written in 2004 by David Ives and Paul Blake. This time, entertainers Bob Wallace and Phil Davis team up with a sister act to try to save the Vermont inn owned by the general the men served under in World War II. It also features "Happy Holiday" and "White Christmas," of course, as well as quite a few songs you'll recognize from the movie, like "Sisters," the one about the "devoted" sisters who don't let anything come between "me and my mister," "Snow," "Love, You Didn't Do Right By Me," and "What Can You Do With a General?"

Deb Smith directs this sweet, sentimental musical for Community Players, with a cast led by Ray Rybarczyk and Jason Strunk in the Bing and Danny roles, with Lindsey Kaupp and Larisa McCoy as the tuneful Haynes sisters. Co-producer John Lieder plays the general whose inn they're trying to save, while Mary P. Weise plays his wisecracking housekeeper and John D. Poling steps in as Ralph Sheldrake, an old army buddy of the boys.

The show opens with a preview performance at 7:30 pm on Thursday, November 29, followed by performances November 30, and December 1-2, 6-9 and 13-16. Click here for ticket information.

And if you'd like to compare and contrast the stage and screen versions of the same story, the Normal Theater will also bring White Christmas the movie to town from December 6 to 9. As noted, the score and story are much the same, although you're trading an in-person musical sung and danced in front of you by friends and neighbors for the Technicolor version with movie stars on the big screen at the vintage Normal Theater. Totally different experience!


You might want to go for both (or all three) if your holiday spirit is in need of a boost.

Community Players Announces Its 90th Season!

Community Players is a Bloomington-Normal institution, founded in 1923 by a group of local theatrical enthusiasts that (as I've heard the story) included movers and shakers like playwright Rachel Crothers and Carl Vrooman, Woodrow Wilson's Secretary of Agriculture.

For their 90th season, CP will undertake a mix of musicals and straight plays, classics and newer works, comedies and dramas. Something for everyone!

First on the schedule is the musical "Legally Blonde," based on the movie of the same name. It's about a smart but kind of daffy blonde named Elle, who decides to try Harvard Law School after being dumped by a boyfriend who's on his way there. But once she hits Harvard, Elle's priorities change, even if her love of pink fashion does not. Bright and charming, "Legally Blonde" featured Christian Borle, now starring in NBC's "Smash," when it was on Broadway, with Laura Bell Bundy as Elle and former Miss America Kate Shindle as her rival. "Legally Blonde" will be presented from July 12 to 29. Note that it is considered a summer show rather than a regular season offering for CP.

Opening August 30 is the Kaufman and Hart classic "You Can't Take It With You," one of the most-performed comedies in the history of the American stage and winner of the 1937 Pulitzer Prize for Drama. The movie version, which starred Jean Arthur and James Stewart as the young lovers and Lionel Barrymore as happy-go-lucky Grandpa Vanderhof, who doesn't believe in paying taxes, won Oscars for Best Picture and Best Director (Frank Capra). "You Can't Take It With You" has a large cast of eccentrics, with two guys making fireworks in the basement, a would-be ballerina trying out her moves in the living room, a drunken actress who falls asleep on the sofa, and a former member of Russian royalty who is now a waitress.

"Leaving Iowa," a comedy that centers on family vacations, will be performed as a Lab Theatre presentation from October 4 to 7. "Leaving Iowa" comes from playwrights Tim Clue and Spike Manton. Clue says, "The real spark behind this work comes from being children of parents from the now dubbed 'greatest generation.' Leaving Iowa is a toast to their idealism and character, and perhaps a little roast of their undying dedication to the classic family road trip. Leaving Iowa is a postcard to anyone who has ever found themselves driving alone on a road, revisiting fond memories of their youth."

CP will finish up 2012 with "Irving Berlin's White Christmas," a stage version of the perennial fave Bing Crosby/Danny Kaye movie. The stage musical keeps the plot about a pair of musical comedy performers who are also WWII veterans who put on a show to honor their old commander. The book is by David Ives and Paul Blake, with a score that includes Irving Berlin's "White Christmas" as well as other Berlin hits like "Happy Holiday," "Blue Skies," "Let Yourself Go" and "I've Got My Love to Keep Me Warm." Of that last bunch, only "Blue Skies" appeared in the movie. "Irving Berlin's White Christmas" opens November 29 and plays till December 16, 2012.

The first show of 2013, scheduled for January 24 to February 3, 2013, will be Ken Ludwig's door-slamming opera farce "Lend Me a Tenor," wherein a man who always wanted to sing Otello gets drafted to do just that after the famous Italian tenor who was supposed to sing the role with the Cleveland Opera takes too many sleeping pills and can't be roused. "Lend Me a Tenor" was revived on Broadway in 2010 with a cast that included Tony Shalhoub and Anthony LaPaglia, with "Hangover" star Justin Bartha as Max, the lowly assistant (and tenor) who finds himself in the middle of the mess.

The lone drama on the schedule is "To Kill a Mockingbird," a stage version of another much-loved book and movie. Harper Lee's original novel about a lawyer taking on a racially-charged case in Alabama during the 1930s and the effect on his family won a Pulitzer Prize, while "To Kill a Mockingbird" the film won Oscars for Gregory Peck for Best Actor, Horton Foote for Best Adapted Screenplay and a trio of designers for their Art Direction. From March 14 to 24, 2013, Community Players will be performing the stage adaptation by Christopher Sergel which was presented at Steppenwolf Theatre in 2010.

And they'll finish the season with "Monty Python's Spamalot," another Tony-Award-winning Broadway musical based on a film ("Monty Python and the Holy Grail"). Monty Python's Eric Idle put together a combination send-up of Broadway shows in general with a spoofy storyline about King Arthur and his knights wandering around having adventures, with favorite bits from the movie (the Black Knight who keeps losing appendages and insisting it's just a flesh wound, the Knights Who Say Ni, a psychotic rabbit, a snotty French guy who tells them "Your mother was a hamster and your father smelt of elderberries") as well as new characters and outrageous situations and songs. "Monty Python's Spamalot" will play at Community Players from May 9 to 26, 2013.

For subscription information as well as updates about auditions, casting and directors, visit the Community Players website.